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+<!-- pubdate: 20210123 -->
+
+# Better than WhatsApp: Try these Free Software Apps and Services
+
+We recommend using Free Software apps<sup>[1](#fn-1)</sup> like
+[Element][1], [Quicksys][2] or [Conversations][3] that connect to Free
+Software powered services. These services allow users to choose their
+service provider without losing the ability to talk to users of other
+providers following the same standard. Free Software ensures users'
+freedom and interoperable services ensure there is no vendor lock-in.
+
+[1]: https://element.io
+[2]: https://quicksy.im
+[3]: https://conversations.im
+
+## Comparison of different apps and services
+
+1. Non-free software client and server + centralization (Example
+   WhatsApp): does not respect user's freedom and creates vendor
+   lock-in.
+
+2. Free Software client but non-free server + centralization (Example
+   Telegram): client software respects freedom, server software does
+   not respect freedom and creates vendor lock-in.
+
+3. Free Software client and server + centralization (Example Signal):
+   respect user's freedom but creates vendor lock-in.
+
+4. Free Software client and server + federation (Example Matrix and
+   Quicksy/XMPP): respects users' freedom (as a user or as a
+   community) and no vendor lock-in.
+
+5. Free software client + peer to peer design (Example Briar, Tox):
+   respects users' freedom and no vendor lock-in.
+
+## Some basic concepts
+
+[Vendor lock-in][v-li]: Ability to switch service
+   is too hard because it requires convincing every contact to move to
+   a new service.
+
+[Peer-to-Peer Design][p2p]: Design which enables a user to communicate
+with another user directly without involving any service provider in
+between. Both parties need to be online at the same time for the
+design to work efficiently.
+
+[End-to-End Encryption][e2e]: Only the users involved in a
+communication can read the messages.
+
+[v-li]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vendor_lock-in
+[p2p]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer-to-peer
+[e2e]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End-to-end_encryption
+
+## WhatsApp and other non-free apps
+
+WhatsApp app is a non-free software which does not respect user's
+freedom and privacy.  WhatsApp does not provide its users the access
+to its source code and actively bans anyone creating a Free Software
+app that can connect to WhatsApp service. They claim their app
+provides end-to-end encryption, but we cannot verify if they actually
+implemented end-to-end encryption without any backdoors (access of app
+remotely without user's permission) or loopholes. Being non-free app is
+enough to reject WhatsApp so we are not going to talk about other bad
+things about WhatsApp.
+
+There are three broad categories of messaging systems with Free
+Software apps - Centralized services, Federated services and
+Peer-to-Peer systems.
+
+## A. Centralized services
+
+A centralized service is one in which every one is forced to use the
+same provider. Setups such as this has many disadvantages such as
+vendor lock-in, being more susceptible to back-doors by government,
+the whole world getting dependent on a single organization for their
+communications. Centralized services also have a single point of
+failure. The organization controlling the service can be sold to a
+different organization, change or even shut down the operation, set
+their own terms of service and privacy policy, [forbid the third-party
+apps from connecting to the centralized service][libresignal-issue].
+
+[libresignal-issue]: https://github.com/LibreSignal/LibreSignal/issues/37#issuecomment-217211165
+
+<dl>
+  <dt><strong>Telegram</strong></dt>
+  <dd>
+    <p><strong>Pros</strong>: Compared to WhatsApp, Telegram provides
+    Free Software app which means end-to-end encryption can be verified
+    to be working as claimed.</p>
+
+    <p><a href="https://t2bot.io/telegram">Allows
+    bots and bridges to connect to other services</a> making it possible
+    to participate in Telegram group chats without using Telegram.</p>
+
+    <p><strong>Cons</strong>: Free software app is often not enough
+    to provide full control over your communications. For example,
+    Telegram's apps (Android, desktop, iOS) are free software but still
+    the service is centralized like WhatsApp. So only Telegram's app
+    respects your freedom but not the service.</p>
+
+    <p>There is no end-to-end encryption by
+    default in Telegram and messages in groups are not encrypted.</p>
+
+    <p>Needs phone number for signing up.</p>
+
+    <p><strong>Summary</strong>: We gained Free Software app and
+    bridges but lost end-to-end encryption by default.</p>
+   </dd>
+
+   <dt><strong>Signal</strong></dt>
+   <dd>
+      <p><strong>Pros</strong>: Signal app is Free Software like
+      Telegram, and in comparison to Telegram it offers server software
+      also as Free Software which makes it better than Telegram.</p>
+
+      <p>End to end encryption is enabled by default and groups
+      chats are also encrypted.</p>
+
+      <p>Minimal
+      <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/06/why-metadata-matters">
+      metadata</a> <a href="https://signal.org/blog/sealed-sender">
+      collected on the server</a>.</p>
+
+      <p><strong>Cons</strong>: Even though you are allowed to setup
+      Signal service yourself, the users of your service will not be able
+      to talk to users of official Signal server, making it practically a
+      vendor lock-in.</p>
+
+      <p>Needs phone number for signing up.</p>
+
+      <p><strong>Summary</strong>: Signal is better than WhatsApp and
+      Telegram.</p>
+   </dd>
+</dl>
+
+## B. Federated services
+
+A federated system is a collection of independent service providers
+which can communicate with each other. Federation is important to take
+full control of your communications.
+You can choose a trusted provider or be a service provider
+yourself. No single entity can force their terms on users.
+Examples of federated systems are mobile phones, emails, matrix , XMPP
+etc. For example, you can buy a SIM card from any mobile service
+provider and talk or send SMS to subscribers of other
+providers. Similarly, you can create an email account with any service
+provider and send emails to people who are registered with a different
+email provider.
+
+<dl>
+    <dt><strong>Quicksy</strong></dt>
+    <dd>
+       <p><strong>Pros</strong>: Federated with XMPP, Control over the
+        policies of the services, switch to any XMPP
+        provider without losing ability to talk to all
+        your Quicksy contacts.</p>
+
+       <p>End to end encryption is enabled by
+        default and group chats are also encrypted
+        by default.</p>
+
+       <p><strong>Cons</strong>: Needs phone number for signing up</p>
+
+       <p><strong>Summary</strong>: Quicksy is better than Signal
+        because of its federated design.</p>
+    </dd>
+
+    <dt><strong>XMPP via apps like Conversations, Dino</strong></dt>
+    <dd>
+      <p><strong>Pros</strong>: In addition to all pros of Quicksy,
+      the phone number/email is not mandatory for an account. If you
+      self-host, metadata retention is under your control.</p>
+
+      <p><strong>Cons</strong>:The process of choosing a service
+       provider and creating an account can appear to be difficult
+       since it may be unfamiliar, no
+       automatic contact discovery.</p>
+    </dd>
+
+    <dt><strong>Matrix via apps like Element, FluffyChat</strong></dt>
+    <dd>
+       <p><strong>Pros</strong>: In addition to all pros of XMPP,
+       Matrix asks your permission before you are added to a personal
+       chat or added to a group chat.</p>
+
+       <p><strong>Cons</strong>: The process of choosing a service
+       provider and creating an account can appear to be difficult
+       since it may be unfamiliar, no automatic contact discovery.</p>
+
+       <p><strong>Summary</strong>: XMPP/Matrix is better than Quicksy
+       from perspective of privacy and freedom at the cost of a bit
+       inconvenience of creating accounts and finding other users
+       automatically.</p>
+
+       <p><strong>Note</strong>: Since XMPP/Matrix allows you to have
+       your choice of apps instead of the ones mentioned above, please
+       chose apps which support end to end encryption
+       (<a href="https://omemo.top">OMEMO</a> for XMPP). The choices we
+       mentioned have end to end encryption by default.</p>
+    </dd>
+</dl>
+
+### C. Peer-to-Peer (P2P) systems
+
+Peer-to-peer instant messengers can talk directly without requiring
+any servers. Examples are [Briar][briar], [Tox][tox] and [GNU
+Jami][jami], etc. The messages are end-to-encrypted and are stored
+only locally in the devices since there are no servers involved. There
+are no servers that could intercept your communications, so it gives
+you the ultimate privacy and freedom. To exchange messages, both peers
+need to be online, which might be a bit inconvenient.
+
+[briar]: https://briarproject.org
+[tox]: https://tox.chat
+[jami]: https://jami.net
+
+## Conclusion
+
+We recommend you to choose any federated system or peer-to-peer
+messenger according to your use-case so that you get full control of
+your communications, freedom and privacy. It is very important to
+reject proprietary services like WhatsApp which takes freedom away
+from the user.  [FSF India][fsfi], [FSCI][fsci] or other volunteer-run
+organization in India would be glad to extend support to anyone
+needing more details on undergoing such a shift.
+
+[fsfi]: /contact
+[fsci]: https://fsci.in/#join-us
+
+## Footnotes
+
+1. Any non-free app controls the user while [free software app is
+  controlled by its users][free-sw]. When we are talking about free
+  software, we not talking about price, we are concerned about
+  freedom.<span id="fn-1"></span>
+
+[free-sw]: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html